Naturally occurring plant derived compounds are believed to afford some health benefits due in part to their antioxidant properties. These antioxidant activities may be important in preventing, treating or ameliorating many diseases, for example, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease, and inflammation, as well as various conditions related to aging. Indeed, there is growing evidence that these compounds may be beneficial as chemopreventative, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory or cardioprotective agents. Accordingly, there is extensive research directed at identifying, extracting, purifying and developing plant derived antioxidant compositions for use as cosmetics, dietary supplements/nutraceuticals, food additives or pharmaceuticals.
Phenolic compounds, including their subcategory, flavonoids, are a group of compounds that possess antioxidant properties, which are present in all plants and have been studied extensively in cereals, legumes, nuts, olive oil, vegetables, fruits, tea and red wine. There is considerable interest in these naturally occurring antioxidants and in methods of extracting these compounds from various plants and plant products. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,620,452 describes a process for extracting plant phenolics from a fruit or vegetable, and steps to provide a liquid or solid concentrate thereof. U.S. Pat. No. 5,932,623 describes a process for obtaining extracts from unripe fruits and purports to identify the polyphenol products that are present in the extract and U.S. Pat. No. 5,994,413 describes a mixture containing polyphenol products extracted from unripe fruits.
Antioxidants, including phenolics, have been identified in, and extracted from, various berries. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,676,978 describes a method for isolating a mixture of anthocyanins, bioflavonoids and phenolics from an edible berry using adsorbent resins. The use of compositions comprising these compounds to provide antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities to a mammal is also described. U.S. Pat. No. 6,312,745 describes a process for dehydrating berries while maintaining their antioxidant compounds/activities. U.S. Patent Application No. 2003/0031734 is directed to blueberry extracts with anti-oxidant and anti-cancer properties and their use to inhibit tumour cell growth and oxidative activity in an animal.
Many plant derived antioxidants have been proposed for use as dietary supplements. For example, U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0068102 describes a dietary supplement comprising natural juices and its use to reduce cellular damage by scavenging free radicals within the human body. The natural juices can be derived from, for example, natural grape concentrate, a natural blueberry juice concentrate and/or other natural juice concentrates. U.S. Patent Application No. 2003/0008048 describes a dietary nutritional supplement that may comprise blueberry, for helping the body resist the effects of the ageing process and U.S. Patent Application No. 2003/003120 is directed to a phenolic fraction obtained from fruit and its use as a cosmetic, dietary, or nutraceutical preparation. Nutritional supplements are also described in U.S. Patent Application No. 2002168429. This patent application describes a method of producing reconstituted vegetable or fruit products that can then be used to prepare a dietary supplement. Fruit juices contemplated by this application include blueberry and cranberry juices, which are expressed from the berries and subsequently concentrated.
Fermentation can also be employed to modulate the antioxidant content of a plant derived products. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,498,412 describes a method for producing a natural antioxidant composition made from a plurality of fermented and milled materials of edible grains and pulses. In addition, wine fermentation has been reported to bring about multiple chemical modifications with respect to phenolic antioxidant profiles (Mazza, G., et al., (1999) J. Agric. Food Chem., 47, 4009-4017; Talcott, S. T. & J. H. Lee (2002) J. Agric. Food Chem., 50, 3186-3192).
Thus, the antioxidant content of fruits and vegetables varies considerably not only with species and growth conditions, but also with a number of other factors, including processing, fermentation, exposure to various temperatures, irradiation and pathogenic infection.
This background information is provided for the purpose of making known information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.